Trapped on the Red Line

This morning I was trapped on the Red Line just south of Downtown Crossing due to a “Medical Emergency” at Park Street.  And by “Medical Emergency” they mean someone was hit by a train.  You don’t close down one of the biggest T stations in a city and cut the power to nearby trains trapping hundreds of commuters underground in darkened subway cars with no air-circulation unless it is a big big deal.
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And it was dark.  The air staled and heated by strangers' nervous conversation.  Time suspended.
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So my half-hour commute was turned into a 2-hour commute because of the second Red Line death in as many weeks.  It makes one wonder if deaths really do come in threes as they say.  Ok, I don’t really wonder that; I’m not superstitious.
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Nor do I believe in coincidences.  Stuck at Downtown Crossing and facing a crowd of hundreds and shuttle busses, I decided to walk to Loews and hop on the Silver Line then switch to the #1 Bus down Mass Ave rather than wait in the throng.  My old commute from the South End. 
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It’s a crisp morning, the kind of morning that reminds me that I’m alive and real and totally me.  It’s a hard emotion to pin down, as I suspect there are too many people who have never felt this.  It feels like what I imagine it feels like to be a mote of dust in a beam of sunlight drifting down on a Sunday morning, always there, but only occasionally visible.  It’s that moment you become visible and see yourself.  It’s surprise at realizing that you forgot who you were.  It’s realizing that everything you do is you doing it.
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I was oddly unperturbed by the whole ordeal.  In fact, I was happy to get to read more of my current commute book, and, in fact, was so engrossed in the reading that I forgot that whenever I pass a certain building I always look up at it.  And then I realized that I really don’t need to look up at that certain building anymore.
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Funny thing about letting go.  There is always more you can let go of.  And the more you let go of, the closer you are to that mote of dust.  Insignificant but fully there.  Fully you.

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